Hollywood's bare naked ladies, but where are the men?

Wednesday

Sep 3, 2014 at 9:34 PM

"Art can never exist without naked beauty being displayed," said William Blake.

In commenting on all that occurred over the long Labor Day holiday, I forgot to mention the nude photo hacking scandal. What to say, except don't put your privates in the iCloud! But it is rather odd that all the victims have been celebrity women. Maybe the original hacker was only interested in ladies, but such mischief is usually not gender-specific. The point is to embarrass everybody. So, don't relax yet, guys. You know who you are!

"When Leo was 16 he had been married off against his will to an ill-favored girl of asphyxiating piety named Theophano. He had, however, steadfastly refused to give up his first love, Zoe Zaustina. Theophano complained to Basil, who had flown into a fury and flogged his son with his own hands."

That grimly colorful anecdote is one among hundreds in a marvelous book I read recently: "A Short History of Byzantium" by John Julius Norwich.

This book -- not new -- is condensed from the author's acclaimed three-volume set. In his foreword, Norwich admits that editing the books down to a mere 400 pages was agonizing. No doubt it was, but his efforts paid off. This is a swift, concise, funny and horrifying read. From the founding of the Roman Empire of the East, in 330 AD, to its inglorious fall to the Turks in 1453, this is action-packed to the max. (It's real history, not historical fiction, so there are no love scenes -- sorry.)

So many emperors of Constantinople, so many popes of the shattered Holy Roman Empire, so much brutality, intrigues, epic battles, pathetic and heroic episodes.

Two things struck me in particular. You must pay attention, because over the centuries many of the names of important players are the same -- dozens of Justinians, Theodoras, Constantines and Eudocias. One is grateful for the occasional Irene, Alania or Bertha! Not to mention little items such as this: "His first wife had died of the plague ... his second attempt was even more ill-starred. Poor Sophia was quite shatteringly plain. Her figure, it was unkindly said, looked like Lent in front and Easter in back."

Also, with the exception of a notable few, Greek and Roman women were a fairly subjugated lot. But the exotic empresses of Byzantium were totally devoted to power and stopped at nothing to achieve their aims -- for themselves and their families. They were as casually brutal as their male counterparts, often moreso. Of course, the specter of the convent always loomed when things went wrong. That can make a woman quite jumpy with a vial of poison or a red-hot tong. (The most famous Theodora began her career as a notorious harlot. She was one of antiquity's finest examples of an upwardly mobile female. Her emperor hubby didn't mind at all.)

What truly fascinates -- and saddens -- is the long fall of Byzantium, how it was essentially abandoned by the West as Rome rose again, and what that meant to history, past and most certainly present. I might have to seek out the original three volumes.

Noticed an interesting letter to the editors in the September Vanity Fair where an argument was going on as to whether Donna Tartt's novel, "The Goldfinch," is "literature" or merely "genre fiction." (Whatever the heck that is!) I barely know Ms. Tartt and she probably doesn't need me defending her. Nor does author Gillian Flynn need me to defend from that same label for her massive hit, which I couldn't put down -- "Gone Girl."

All this tempest in a teapot resulted in a letter from Ellen Brown, who is the author of "Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood."

Margaret Mitchell died in 1949, but Ms. Brown rises to defend "Gone with the Wind," much maligned for its genteel depiction of a benign slavery. (I guess it's the kind Thomas Jefferson believed in and then didn't believe in.)

Ms. Brown, however, points out that in a recent poll: "'Gone with the Wind' was the second most popular novel in America. This year, the hardcover lists 21,997 sales, the trade paperback lists 4,615 and Kindle's ebook lists 3,687." Brown adds, "Not bad for a work that won the Pulitzer Prize and it was first published 75 years ago!" She objects to "GWTW" being called "a relic." I do, too. I read it first in 1936 and have re-read it many times.

What's more ... I can never get enough of the movie version with Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable and the rest of the cast, including Hattie McDaniel, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of "Mammy." She was the first African American to do so!

SO, speaking of that, the University of Texas is celebrating the making of the film on "GWTW's" 75th anniversary. This happens at the Harry Ransom Center in popular Austin, Texas. The Center possesses all of producer David O. Selznick's voluminous papers, letters, notes and books. The Center had plenty of choices and is showing only 300 of these gems. There are also gowns from the movie, copies of gowns and the screen tests of Lana Turner, Paulette Goddard and many other actresses. All of them, including Tallulah Bankhead, wanted to play Scarlett O'Hara.

The green dress made of Tara's curtains is on display, and who can forget Carol Burnett's great comedy take-off on that in her TV series! This exhibit shows until January 4, 2015.

Although the state of Texas isn't friendly to liberal thought these days, I am still proud of the independent thinking that overrides politics and has created the Harry Ransom Center, as well as the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History where my own papers are going to spend eternity. In my case, I join Norman Mailer, Woodward and Bernstein, almost all of the TV anchormen from the Walter Cronkite era onward, Robert DeNiro, George M. Cohan and Gloria Swanson -- just to name a few being saved for posterity.

If ever you go to Austin, don't miss the "warts and all" LBJ Library. That alone is worth the trip!

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